Apologies for the paywall folks; if anyone is interested in reading the original research WSJ is reporting on, this is it: http://us.spindices.com/documents/spi

Apologies for the paywall folks; if anyone is interested in reading the original research WSJ is reporting on, this is it: http://us.spindices.com/documents/spiva/spiva-us-year-end-2016.pdf http://us.spindices.com/documents/spiva/spiva-us-year-end-20... The Cliff's Notes are these: * 82% of all U.S. funds trailed their respective benchmarks over 15 years. * 66% of large-cap actively managed funds trailed benchmarks. * 89.4% of mid-cap actively managed funds trailed benchmarks. * 85.5% of small-cap actively managed funds trailed benchmarks.